Areas of Interest

Areas of Interest

Our Farm of Loving Intention

John 13:34-35 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Natural vs. Organic

Natural Vs. Organic: The difference may surprise you??

In perusing the CraigsList ads in the Farm and Garden section, I came across a great number of ads for “organic eggs” and found myself staring in surprise and what these well meaning folks call organic…free range, the ads said, fed “all natural feed” no hormones or antibiotics…well, folks, I have news for you. What would you say if I told you that “all natural” simply means no artificial coloring or flavorings…everything else is fair game?

That means that your “all natural” feed is most likely genetically modified and can be sprayed with chemical pesticides and herbicides, and fertilizers…the following is from a blog on the Countryside Naturals website where we order our certified organic feed for our dairy cows:

“There are no “All Natural” specifications determining how the grains are grown or what conditions the animal is raised in. You can use GMO seeds in “All Natural” products, spray whatever you wish on the plants and use whatever fertilizer you want. You just can’t use any artificial flavors or colors. As far as animals are concerned, you can pack as many as you are legally allowed into a barn or feed lot, feed them whatever you wish and give them whatever you want to promote growth. You just can’t add any artificial flavors or colors to the meat.”

OK, folks, see what I’m saying here? Don’t go getting offended on me, I speak as one child of God to another. We are being slowly but surely lulled into a false sense of security. If you have any doubts about this genetically modified stuff you’ve been hearing about, let me put it in simple terms. If you’re eating anything but one hundred percent certified organic food, then you’re eating genetically modified food or food that has been fed genetically modified feed.

The very process of genetic modification is violent, and unpredictable. We would assume there have been safety tests on genetically modified corn, cotton soy and canola for human consumption…well, there have been only a few human studies, and the findings were disturbing. Why don’t you know about these findings? Because the FDA compliance officers, and other scientists who have been brave enough to tell the truth have been silenced, fired, stripped of their responsibilities, and in some cases threatened with personal harm for saying that these foods are not safe for human consumption and require more long term studies. I’m not a scientist, but here is an excerpt from Jeffrey Smith’s website, Seeds of Deception, giving a brief summary on genetically modified foods:

You may have heard the FDA and food industry claims that genetically modified (GM) foods are safe, properly tested, and necessary to feed a hungry world. UNTRUE! Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are one of most dangerous and radical changes to our food supply. These largely unregulated ingredients found in 60-70% of the foods in the US, are well worth the effort to avoid them.

Many consumers in the US mistakenly believe that the FDA approves GM foods through rigorous, in-depth, long-term studies. In reality, the agency has absolutely no safety testing requirements. Instead the agency relies on research from companies like Monsanto, research that is meticulously designed to avoid finding problems.

It’s easy to understand the FDA’s industry-friendly policy on regulation of GMOs when you see the revolving door between agency regulators and the companies they regulate. The White House mandate to the FDA (under the first George Bush) was to promote biotechnology and the person in charge of developing the agency’s policy at that time was a former Monsanto attorney, who later returned to Monsanto as their vice president.

The FDA has claimed it was not aware of any information showing that GM crops were different “in any meaningful or uniform way,” from non-GMO crops and therefore didn’t require testing. But 44,000 internal FDA documents made public by a lawsuit show that this was a complete lie. The overwhelming consensus among the FDA’s own scientists was that GM foods were quite different and could lead to unpredictable and hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. It turns out that FDA scientists, who had urged superiors to require long-term studies, were ignored.

Even though evidence of this apparent fraud at the FDA was presented at a Washington, D.C. press conference in 1999 with major media in attendance, the media didn’t alert the public. In fact, most Americans know so little about this subject, that only about 1 in 4 consumers even know if they’ve ever eaten a GM food in their lives, even though the vast majority of processed foods contain derivatives from the four major GM crops: soy, corn, cottonseed and canola.

Friends, as I said, I am not a scientist, I am just like you. But down deep in my spirit, I know it is wrong to tamper with what God created. How could what He created, be less than or inferior? For that matter, why would we want to make seeds sterile after one planting? So we need to buy new seeds every year? Why? Simple answer. Money, profit, greed. Why are we so complacent, why are we so misinformed? We the people have to take responsibility for our current state of affairs. I meet people every day who express a feeling of unease and sadness. They are not quite sure why they feel this way. Well I know why. We are all God’s children and we have departed from His ways to our ways. Now we have people playing God claiming that what we He gave us isn’t enough, we need to “modify” His creations and then we’re surprised when we look around us and see devastation. Children with attention deficits, obesity, cancer, leukemia, mood disorders…Time to wake up and reclaim our God given genetic inheritance. He intended for us to be in abundant health. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Just the other day a woman showed up her at our farm, asking about getting in on the organic animal feed co-op we are running. She described how in forty years of working with and owning horses, she has never seen maladies like she is today. Lesions and growths on the horses that baffles the vet, and leave them saying “I have no idea what this is, never seen anything like it before.” Just like the FDA compliance officers said and were promptly run out of town. Another woman described to me how her horse isn’t sweating properly, WHAT? Sounds like the “unpredictable new diseases” are rearing their ugly heads. Wake up, look around, is this really the best we can do?

We can fight this battle without ever firing a shot. Run to the frontlines with us….Take your dollar and vote with it. Skip the Starbucks and support local farmers, and buy organic for your farm animals and your family! Natural, does not mean organic. Ask questions and take responsibility for learning more about where you get your food, how it is cared for and how it is fed. If you’re eating it, it matters!